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The Magic Mouse - Not so "magical" after all

Image representing Magic Mouse as depicted in ...

Image via CrunchBase

Today, a magic mouse happened to move into our house, so I just felt compelled to tell you all what I thought about it. First of all, it is very sleek. It has a low profile, which I don't really like, because you can't rest your hand on it like you can with the mighty mouse. Another major problem that comes along with it is that the surface that is supposed to be multitouch-able is really not good for that because it does not allow your fingers to slide on it. They stick, making it very hard to perform any sort of gesture with more than one finger. Along with this surface problem, many features don't exist for this mouse if you aren't running Snow Leopard. Such as any configuration tools, momentum scrolling, and other things you'd expect out of a magic mouse. If you are running snow leopard, many things become available however. You can install things such as MouseWizard which gives you access to most if not all multi touch gestures that you'd expect out of a regular trackpad on a mac. These do not come with the mouse, but can be accessed by installing that great $5 piece of software. The mouse is also really light. I'm not sure that I like that or not, as I am used to the weight of the Mighty Mouse and like it better. Another thing that I really don't like about it is that if you are going to perform any sort of gesture, like two finger or three finger swipes, you have to hold the thing really awkwardly which almost hurts your hand to do. I'd much rather have a multi-touch pad than try to do gestures on this thing. In the end, I'll stick with my Mighty Mouse. 

All for Now!
Correction: An update is available to enable the Magic Mouse special features of Leopard. I spoke too soon. 
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Arthur Rosa is an engineering manager based in Sunnyvale, California.